Alone, Not Lonely

I didn’t buy a one-way ticket to Canada because I wanted an adventure. I bought it because I had had enough of the hamster wheel and the relentless performance of who I thought I was supposed to be.

For years, I had been the one who coped. The strong one. The independent one. The resilient one. I believed that if I worked harder, achieved more and kept everything together, I would eventually feel worthy. Instead, I was exhausted.

So, during a lunch break, I bought a one-way ticket to Canada. Five months later, I left England with a backpack, limited savings and no real plan beyond the hope that leaving might change something.

What followed was twenty months of travelling alone through Canada, the United States, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. There were frozen dog bowls in the Yukon, camping near the Arctic Circle, food poisoning in Panama, political unrest in Bolivia, endless buses, jungle chaos, unexpected friendships and more than a few questionable decisions.

I thought travel might help me find myself. I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. The further I travelled, the more I began to wonder whether finding myself was really the point.

What stayed with me most wasn’t the wilderness, the uncertainty or even the solitude.

It was the kindness.

Strangers fed me when I couldn’t feed myself. They sat beside me when I cried. They made room for me at their tables and in their lives. Again and again, they saw me when I wasn’t strong or coping particularly well and stayed anyway.

Slowly, I began to let them.